Families began relocating to Collegeport, also called the "Town of Opportunity", after an advertising venture by Hurd that promoted the area's mild climate and the prospective farming lands.

Professor Will Travis opened the Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts and proceeded to make deals with the pioneer orange growers from the north as part of a student labor program.

Collegeport had, at its peak, consisted of three hotels, a City State Bank, a telephone exchange, two hardware stores, a drugstore, two grocery stores, a barber shop, a planing mill, carpenters, blacksmiths, a boat building shop, doctors, a dentist, a veterinarian, a lawyer, a college, a high school, an ice house, a pavilion with boat services, and the Missouri Pacific Rail Station.

[4] Despite Hurd's claims of Collegeport's mild and warm climate, freezes began to plague the town and its farmers.

[4] As of 2008 Collegeport has two churches, a community center, the Mopac House, a volunteer fire department, and a post office.